


how to break a heart in ten minutes or less

by pacificnewt



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: ...sort of, M/M, Newton Geiszler Recovery Arc, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), hermann just really loves him, newt is in a mental institute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:42:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17830514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacificnewt/pseuds/pacificnewt
Summary: Hermann visits Newt every day after his capture.





	how to break a heart in ten minutes or less

**Author's Note:**

> i know there are quite a few fics like this and i just want to say: i am sorry

It was the same exchange every day.

 

_ May I have your name, sir? _

 

_ Hermann Gottlieb. _

 

_ And you are here to see…? _

 

_ Newton Geiszler. _

 

_ Right this way, Mr. Gottlieb. _

 

Eventually it became so clockwork that Hermann was able to skip right over the back and forth.

 

_ My name is Hermann Gottlieb, and I’m here to see Newton Geiszler. _

 

He rehearsed it in the morning in front of the mirror. He rehearsed it at night by the sink. He rehearsed it when old memories of his former lab partner infiltrated the walls in his mind he tried to desperately to keep up against those very thoughts. He rehearsed it when he jolted awake in bed from the nightmare that he knew was a real memory but would deny happened until the day he died.  _ My name is Hermann Gottlieb, and I’m here to see Newton Geiszler. _

 

He rehearsed it sitting in the waiting room of the psychiatric hospital that Newton was admitted to immediately after his capture. Hermann detested it. It was too quiet, too big, with too much possibility for something to go horribly wrong. He felt the dread of the situation multiplied for every nerve in his body as soon as he was guided near Newton’s cell.

 

The guard that Hermann was accustomed to following down the hall stopped in front of an unfamiliar-looking door, and Hermann’s heart nearly jumped from its roots in his chest and crawled into his throat. He heard hysterical laughter past the walls.  _ Newton. _

 

“His condition has worsened,” the guard muttered. “From now on your visits will take place here. You know the rules: ten minutes or less.”

 

Hermann swallowed thickly. He shook the guard’s hand, thanked him quickly for his cooperation, and allowed him to open the door. Hermann was ushered into the room and the door was shut fast behind him. It was as though the guard couldn’t stomach even a glimpse into the room.

 

It was white. Hermann’s eyes had to adjust around the fluorescent bar-type lights on the ceiling, and once they did, he noticed a singular chair facing what looked to be a wall from where he stood. He cleared his throat and took another step into the room, and realized it was a large pane of glass.

 

Hermann stared down at the white floor while he hurriedly approached the chair. He sat down in it and crossed one leg over the other, refusing to lift his gaze as he did so. Once Hermann was situated, he closed his eyes. He lifted his head. His eyes were then opened, and he felt the air leave his lungs.

 

Newton sat in front of him, limbs held tightly against his body with help from a straitjacket. He was seated on the ground with nothing in the room behind glass with him. The walls and floor were padded in contrast to the cold hardness of where Hermann sat.

 

Hermann’s mouth was agape. His stomach dropped three stories while he lost all feeling in his fingers and toes. His legs became jelly and if somebody asked him, he would have sworn his heart ceased to beat. He was looking at the ghost of the man he loved, and the ghost looked back at him.

 

“Hermann?” Newton smiled with faux genuineness. “We hardly recognized you.”

 

_ We _ . Hermann ran his tongue over his lips.

 

Nine minutes.

 

The sweetness in Newton’s voice made it feel worse. If there was even a hint of the real one in there somewhere, Hermann could have found it bearable; but there wasn’t, so he couldn’t. He continued to hope for it every day regardless.

 

“Good afternoon, Newton,” Hermann said quietly.

 

Newton grinned wider with just-visible-enough blood on his teeth. Hermann guessed his old habit of biting his lips worsened with his mental state. The parasites in his mind must have been chewing hard enough to bleed. “Why are you here?”

 

Hermann sighed for nobody to hear. “I just came to see you. I wanted to check how you were doing.”

 

Using his feet, Newton managed to force himself even closer to the glass. Hermann knew how dangerous it posed to be, but he didn’t move back. He couldn’t bring himself to be scared of Newton. “You never cared about that.”

 

“I do now.” His response was quick. He hoped it wasn’t too quick.

 

Eight minutes.

 

Hermann heard a laugh unlike the one he knew for sure belonged to Newton. It was distorted and harsh. Hermann looked upon Newton, whose eyes now changed from green to be red. “He isn’t getting out of here,” the distorted voice told Hermann.

 

Hermann knew that “he” was whatever was left of the real Newton Geiszler, buried deep under his own controlled mind. It was strange to see his body but not see him in the driver’s seat. Hermann wouldn’t be swayed.

 

“Newton,” he cooed, “I know you’re still there. And you know it too. This is not you, schatz.” He noticed himself starting to tear up, then wiped it away immediately. Hermann Gottlieb did not cry, not around anyone else. “You will be freed soon.”

 

In an instant the same distorted voice was shrieking. “ _ He is never getting out of here! _ ” It vibrated against the glass. The volume shocked Hermann, though not outwardly. He felt as though his heart was torn in two.

 

Hermann said nothing, but Newton was panting. He heaved deeply through flared nostrils. When Hermann focused on him again, Newton’s eyes were glossy with confusion.

 

Seven minutes.

 

“Hermann?” It was Newt’s voice. “Hermann, Hermann, is that you?” His real voice.

 

Hermann nearly fell out of his chair. “N-… Newton-”

 

And Newt began to cry. While typical fits are in like a lamb and out like a lion, Newt was seized by sobs at the very beginning. He was consumed by convulsions and shook harder than a little leaf in a violent thunderstorm. He thrashed his body around and fell onto his side against the padding. Then he kicked his feet and tore his throat apart with his hysterical screaming. He hardly shed any tears; he was panicking.

 

Hermann then did fall from his chair. He landed on his knees and normally would have hissed in pain, but not now. He dragged his body to the glass and leaned up against it with tears in his eyes. He couldn’t stand to see Newton the way he was, but he would be damned if he looked away. The two pieces of his heart became four.

 

Six minutes.

 

“Newton, please, please hear me.” Hermann was choking on the words as though somebody had forced them into his throat. “I know that’s you, you can stop, Newton, please _stop_ , liebling, I’m right here…”

 

It was Newt. He fought himself against the floor as a physical representation of his brain being ripped at the seams. The precursors lifted their hold on him just a moment, just long enough to allow Newt to realize the extent of the damage they had forced him to cause. Newt could see flashbulb images in his brain of the kaiju hivemind, of the destroyed city, of the bodies that littered the streets. He focused in on the memories of the jaegers doing their best against the monsters he led right to them. It made Newt sick enough to vomit on the floor next to where he was spazzing. He coughed and hacked and his eyes were flicking both side to side and back into his head then forward again. Hermann felt like he would pass out. His head spun like a child’s pinwheel.

 

Five minutes.

 

Newt started to gasp and Hermann listened. Hermann hoped he would say something. He did.

 

“How many people did I kill?”

 

“You killed nobody, Newton,” Hermann cried. “It wasn’t you!”

 

“How many people did they force me to kill?” He was yelling again.

 

Hermann inhaled slowly through his nose, then exhaled through his mouth. “They don’t have an exact number.”

 

“An estimate?” The tears may as well have been in his voice. Hermann couldn’t stand the way Newt sounded like he would shatter at any moment. He didn’t want to have to tell him, but he knew Newt and knew he’d stop at nothing to find it out. Hermann couldn’t handle hearing Newt beg to know what he had done.

 

So Hermann told him. He spread his palm against the glass and he spat the number like it was poisonous. A beat, and Newt began to scream again.

 

Four minutes.

 

Hermann was crying harder than he had been previously. He had shakily removed his glasses to smear around his tears in an effort to wipe them on his sleeves. It was pitiful in his eyes, to be weeping all over the clothes Newt loved to ostracize him for in the past. Hermann didn’t have the effort to admire the nature of its symbolism, not when the man was thrust right into another fit of throwing himself against the floor. Newt forced himself up and started to hit his head against the glass in between his sobs, right against Hermann’s palm. The palm fell from the window and onto the ground beside Hermann, crying in a heap. Newt broke skin on his forehead and left blood on the glass. Hermann could barely speak.

 

Three minutes.

 

“I love you,” Hermann whispered. “I love you, Newton, _I love you_ , and you’re going to be okay. You’re okay.” He was struggling to get through it. His voice cut out and he gave up.

 

Only seconds passed before Newt stopped screaming. He was suddenly grinning again like somebody flipped a switch, with a drop of blood forming in the corner of his left eye. Hermann lifted his head to be met with the drop running down his cheek, a crimson streak in its wake. The man that Hermann loved so brutally it softened him was gone again with no indication of if he would ever be back.

 

“You should leave, Doctor.” The distorted voice was back. It chilled Hermann’s bones.

 

“Give him back to me,” he pleaded. His voice was broken. “Give him back! Give him back!”

 

Two minutes.

 

His ears were filled with the same laughter he had heard when he first came in. “He’s ours,” it hissed. “There is no Newton Geiszler.”

 

“He was here,” Hermann gasped. “He was here, you let me see him. That was Newt. Please, God, give him back, let me see him!”

 

A light flickered above Hermann’s place on the floor. Another bloody tear ran down Newton’s face. “Do not come back here. He is gone.”

 

Hermann started to shake his head. “Give him back. Give him back. _Give him back!_ ”

 

Suddenly a fist crashed against the window and startled Hermann to his core. “He was weak! He is too weak! He is not strong enough to keep fighting us!” It was angry yelling, but then the voice started to laugh again. “Say goodbye!”

 

One minute.

 

“No!” Hermann was screaming. “You monsters! You- you left him be just to remind him of what you did! Let me see him, let me hold him, let me-” His voice broke again.

 

The guard opened the door and walked towards Hermann. He bent down and gathered the man by his arms, beginning to try to tug him away from the glass. Newton was laughing hard enough to make him start to cough. Hermann kicked and yelled and kept on crying, but it didn’t phase the guard.

 

“It’s been ten minutes,” he said smoothly. The guard managed to pull Hermann to his feet and dragged him back towards the door while Newton threw his head back in amusement. 

 

“I love you!” Hermann screamed back through the door just before the guard forced it shut.

 

He did not return the next day.


End file.
